The Dutiful Wife: More Than Just a Comedy
by Walter Brasch
www.OpEdNews.com
Laura Bush has shown that her husband isnÂ't the only one who can
do stand-up comedy. In her case, it was deliberate, performed before
the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association.
The dinner is a century-old tradition where reporters,
politicians, and other entertainers dress up and schmooze each
other, not unlike what they tend to do all year long, only in suits
and dresses and not tuxedoes and $3,000 ball gowns. Another of
the traditions is that the President of the United States attends
the dinner, and becomes a stand-up comic, poking fun at himself and
the reporters. Before and after the dinner, news organizations throw
exclusive Oscar-type parties, all meant to bring selected
Â"we-think-weÂ're-importantÂ" people together. At one time, the dinners
were off-the-record; now theyÂ're just a lot of soft news for
reporters who often havenÂ't fulfilled the wishes of the Founding
Fathers to be watchdogs upon the government.
More than two decades earlier, Nancy Reagan, always immaculately
dressed in designer clothes, did a self-deprecating parody of
Â"Second Hand Rose.Â" But at this dinner, Laura Bush, on schedule,
interrupted a lame joke by the President to do her own comedy
routine. The President knew his wife would interrupt himÂ""it was his
ideaÂ""but he didnÂ't know what she would say. Landon Parvin did.
Parvin, who has written comedy for President Reagan, and both the
senior and junior Bushes, wrote the First LadyÂ's zingers.
To delighted laughter, Laura Bush said she recently told her
husband, Â"George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world,
youÂ're going to have to stay up later. . . .HereÂ's our typical
evening. Nine OÂ'Clock. Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep and IÂ'm
watching Â'Desperate Housewives.Â' Ladies and gentlemen, I am a
desperate housewife.Â" She poked fun at her husbandÂ's language
skills: Â"George and I are complete opposites. IÂ'm quiet. HeÂ's
talkative. IÂ'm introverted. HeÂ's extroverted. I can pronounce
Â'nuclear.Â'Â" She even poked fun at his super-macho image to destroy,
rather than fix or build: Â"GeorgeÂ's answer to any problem at the
ranch is to cut it down with a chain saw, which is why I think he
and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.Â" She threw one-liners
about Barbara Bush and the Presidential retreat in Kennebunport,
Maine. She had read her lines well and received a standing ovation
from the star-struck extras.
During George W. BushÂ's first presidential campaign, Laura Bush
seldom spoke out, and when she did, it was carefully scripted and on
message. Part of it was the reluctance of the shy former librarian
to be on stage. Much of it was campaign strategy to play to a part
of America that believes wives should be shy, relatively meek women
who stand by their husbandÂ's side and echo all of his thoughts,
unlike the image that Hillary Clinton showed the American people for
eight years.
During her husbandÂ's first term, the dutiful wife did dutiful
things. One of the things she did not do was to join thousands of
her fellow librarians in speaking out against the excesses and
threats posed by the USA PATRIOT Act to the nationÂ's libraries and
readers. But, she was not alone. Few journalists, and almost none of
the Washington correspondents, even wrote about the excesses and
Constitutional violations of the PATRIOT Act until it appeared that
public opinion was changing.
She could have spoken out against the BushÂ-Cheney
administrationÂ's disregard for the First Amendment by establishing
practices to shut down dissent or the extensive undermining of the
Freedom of Information Act. But she did not.
She could have spoken out against the abuses and torture of
prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. But she did not. She
could have spoken out against the nomination for attorney general of
Alberto Gonzales, who had written the memos condoning torture and
arguing that the Geneva conventions donÂ't apply to prisoners of
Americans. She could have spoken out that the selection of judges
should be upon judicial competence, and not upon religious or
political philosophy. She could have spoken out that the nomination
of John Bolton to the United Nations ambassadorship was a
disgraceful Â"in your faceÂ" slap to that world body. She could have
spoken out against the lack of ethics of Texan Tom DeLay, majority
leader in the House. But in every case she did not.
She could have spoken against the politically-motivated invasion
of Iraq that was based upon a series of lies told both to the
President by his own staff and repeated by the President to the
American people. But she did not.
Although her husband was strutting on a world stage, while
proclaiming he was responsible for decreasing terror, she could have
spoken out that the AdministrationÂ's claims were fiction, and that
there was a significant increase in terrorist attacks in the world
during 2003 and 2004. But she did not.
She could have spoken out against the use of several hundred
million dollars of Homeland Security funds as political pork, and of
the ineptness and the harassment of innocent Americans by several
federal agencies, including the Transportation Security
Administration. But she did not.
She could have spoken out for more funding for education, for
better health care for all Americans, for worker rights, and against
the desecration of the environment. She could have spoken about
against the massive tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of
Americans that will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion over the
next decade. But she did not.
She could have spoken out that the tenets of Christian charity
are not to eviscerate those who arenÂ't Christian or who donÂ't live
the lifestyles that a small minority of extremist fanatics within
that faith, now guides for the Bush administration, believe is the
only Â"moralÂ" way to live and to worship. But she did not.
There was a lot that Laura Bush could have said during almost
five years in the national spotlight. But, this dutiful wife chose
to recite comedy lines, while the sycophantic Washington
correspondents, trying to keep gravy off of their tuxes and gowns,
laughed heartily, recorded every word, and wrote dozens of
light-hearted stories that were reprinted by almost all of the
nationÂ's news media.
[Walter BraschÂ's latest book is AmericaÂ's
Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal GovernmentÂ's Violation of
Constitutional and Civil Rights (Peter Lang Publishing, 2005). [WWW.WALTERBRASCH.COM/UNPATRIOTICACTS.HTM]
Dr. Brasch is an award-winning journalist and professor of mass
communications/journalism. You may write to Brasch at
brasch@bloomu.edu]
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